GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli shelling killed four boys on a Gaza beach on Wednesday, a local health official said, and Palestinian militants fired a further 70 rockets into Israel after a failed Egyptian attempt to halt more than a week of warfare.

Israel urged the evacuation of several districts in the Gaza Strip where more than 100,000 people live, threatening ground operations to try to stem the rocket attacks.

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel resumed its air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday a day after holding its fire in deference to an Egyptian-proposed cease-fire deal that failed to get Hamas militants to halt rocket attacks.

Attacks in the Gaza Strip killed at least seven Palestinians in the early hours of Wednesday, Gaza health officials said, and destroyed the house of Mahmoud Zahar – who is believed to be in hiding elsewhere – in the first apparent targeting of a top Hamas political leader.

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel resumed its air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday a day after holding its fire in deference to an Egyptian-proposed ceasefire deal that failed to get Hamas militants to halt rocket attacks.

Attacks in the Gaza Strip killed at least three Palestinians in the early hours of Wednesday and destroyed the house of Mahmoud Zahar – who is believed to be in hiding elsewhere – in the first apparent targeting of a top Hamas political leader.

GAZA (Reuters) – Palestinian Hamas fighters once tried in vain to copy Israel’s iconic submachine gun, the Uzi. Twenty years on, their homemade rockets streak more than 100 km (60 miles) from Gaza toward the northern Israeli city of Haifa.

At least 180 Palestinians have died in eight days of cross-border fighting between the guerrillas and the vastly stronger Israeli military. Israel has so far suffered one fatality, but this contrast in casualties has not detracted from Hamas’s pride in its technical progress.

GAZA (Reuters) – Palestinian Hamas fighters once tried in vain to copy Israel’s iconic submachine gun, the Uzi. Twenty years on, their homemade rockets streak more than 100 km (60 miles) from Gaza toward the northern Israeli city of Haifa.

At least 180 Palestinians have died in eight days of cross-border fighting between the guerrillas and the vastly stronger Israeli military. Israel has so far suffered one fatality, but this contrast in casualties has not detracted from Hamas’s pride in its technical progress.

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli air strikes shook Gaza every few minutes on Wednesday, and militants kept up rocket fire at Israel’s heartland in intensifying warfare that Palestinian officials said has killed at least 38 people in the Hamas-dominated enclave.

Missiles from the Iron Dome defence system shot into the sky to intercept rockets launched, for the second straight day, at Tel Aviv, the country’s commercial capital.

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Militants in Gaza fired more rockets at Tel Aviv on Wednesday, targeting Israel’s heartland after Israeli attacks in the enclave that Palestinian officials said have killed at least 27 people.

No casualties were reported in the rocket barrages, on the second day of an intensified Israeli offensive in the Hamas-dominated Gaza Strip. Missiles from Israel’s Iron Dome defence system shot into the sky to intercept the projectiles.

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – At least 23 people were killed across Gaza, Palestinian officials said on Wednesday, by a bombardment Israel said may be just the start of a lengthy offensive against Islamist militants whose rockets struck deeper than ever before into Israel.

Israelis ran for cover late on Tuesday as air-raid sirens sounded in the business capital Tel Aviv and the holy city of Jerusalem, both of which were hit in the Gaza war of November 2012.

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel launched an aerial offensive in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, calling it part of a campaign named “Operation Protective Edge” targeting Hamas Islamist militants firing rockets at the Jewish state.

The military urged Israelis within a 40-km (24-mile) radius of the southern coastal territory to stay within reach of protected areas and ordered summer camps shut as a precaution against rocket fire.